Laboratory Excavation of a Neolithic Grave from Avignon-La Balance-Ilot P (France): Burial Practices and Garment Reconstruction

The grave of La Balance-Ilot P, in Avignon, southern France, is an individual and isolated burial, attributed in the 1970′s to the Mesolithic or the Early Neolithic. The grave, partially unearthed, was exhibited and stored at the Calvet Museum until its rediscovery and laboratory excavation in 2009. We used 3D laser recording and field anthropological methods, followed by a multidisciplinary approach. The deceased, an adult male, was buried in primary deposition without any architectural features preserved. For the first time in the Mediterranean early Neolithic, this study led to the identification of a garment adorned with sophisticated embroidery using 158 red-colored Columbella rustica shells and 16 red deer canines. Calibrated AMS dates allow us to reliably place it in the early 5th millennium b.c. reinforcing evidence for long distance intercultural relationships in Europe during the Neolithic.     

Interpreting pachyderm single carcass sites in the African Lower and Early Middle Pleistocene record: A multidisciplinary approach to the site of Nadung’a 4 (Kenya)

Nadung’a 4 is one of the single carcass pachyderm sites recorded in East Africa during the Lower and Early Middle Pleistocene. The site has yielded an abundant lithic assemblage in close association with the partial carcass of an elephant. Conjoined pedological, geoarchaeological, spatial, technological, and taphonomical analyses have been carried out to address the relationship between hominids and elephant. The resulting data are consistent with a non-fortuitous association between both categories of remains. The lithic artefacts do not match a classical Acheulean tool-kit, as would be expected for the time period ascribed to the site, and the functional patterns inferred from their analysis make this site radically different from other purported butchery sites. The implications of these original features are discussed.     

La parité à l'épreuve des élections municipales de mars 2001

On 6 June 2000, France adopted a law concerning 'women and men's equal access to elected office'. This gender parity law was first implemented in the municipal elections of 11 and 18 March 2001 which resulted in the proportion of women town councillors more than doubling from 21.9 per cent to 47.5 per cent in municipalities with more than 3500 residents. In other words, the law reached its quantitative goal. However, it did not have the effect of widening women's access to the most prestigious posts: those of mayors, deputy mayors, inter-town concillors ( conseillers inter-communaux ), and general councillors ( conseillers généraux ). While political parties did respect the law, they also shied away from promoting women to truly strategic positions.     

Rehabilitating political parties: an examination of the writings of Hans Kelsen

This paper focuses on Hans Kelsen’s reflections on political parties. During the interwar period, Kelsen participated in a controversy over whether political parties were a necessary part of the democratic process. The debate forced Kelsen to produce a defence of political parties to emphasise their functionality and define their place in his particular definition of democracy. This contribution considers the following aspects. First, the reasons why Kelsen thought political parties are necessary for democratic life are explained. Second, the doctrinal oppositions against which he elaborated his defence of political parties are clarified. Third, the programme that Kelsen conceived of to enhance political parties in a constitutional democracy is examined. Finally, the contemporary questions that have arisen in relation to Kelsen’s conception of political parties are scrutinised. Kelsen’s contribution to the debate about the role of political parties was intimately related to the presence of strong criticisms of that role. This makes his reflections even more interesting today, considering the present relative decline of the political role and appeal of parties.     

Sustainable management of metallurgical forest on Mont Lozère (France) during the Early Middle Ages

Mont Lozère, located in the French Massif Central region, provides an exceptional context in which to research the impact that charcoal production and metallurgy had on woodlands, along with the role that these activities played in changing the mountain landscape. This study provides an insight into the land use, forest management methods and metallurgical practices in the area during the Middle Ages (11th to 15th centuries). Medieval charcoal burning platforms, archaeological remains that have often been neglected in the past as a source of historical information, along with nearby smelting sites, were identified, sampled and analysed. In this paper, spatial analyses, radiocarbon dating and anthracological and dendro-anthracological studies have been combined in a unique manner. The results reveal that charcoal burners practiced beech coppicing, where the species and diameter of wood used remained the same over a period of four centuries. It is proposed that this form of metallurgical forest management be considered an early example of a sustainable utilisation of natural resources.     

The role of fire within Neolithic collective burials: Spatial analyses of cremains from the site of La Truie Pendue,France

The use of collective graves is one of the main features of the western European Late Neolithic. A single gravesite received the successive deposition of dozens or sometimes hundreds of individuals. While cremations or even full-fired inhumation layers are often found within these funerary deposits, the actual role of fire is still poorly understood. Recently discovered within the important archaeological complex of Passy (Yonne, France), the burned collective grave of La Truie-Pendue provides an outstanding case study to examine the use of fire within Neolithic funerary rites. In this study, we develop a new contextual approach to bone alterations in order to reconstruct the original circumstances of combustion and to examine cultural motivations for the use of fire. Results of spatial statistical analyses indicate that the fire event was the first step of a procedure that sealed the grave, closed the access to the dead and signaled the end of the grave's history. Similar sealing procedures were usual elsewhere during the Late Neolithic. Finally, this study demonstrates the value of using GIS as a tool to optimize taphonomic analyses of widely fragmented and commingled skeletal assemblages.     

The Mousterian bone retouchers of Noisetier Cave: experimentation and identification of marks

Retouchers are fragments of bone used during the Paleolithic to strike stone flakes in order to transform them into retouched tools. Our experiments show that the mark produced on retouchers differs depending on whether they were used to strike flint or quartzite. Our results suggest that numerous pits, most often with an ovoid form, characterize the retouching of quartzite flakes. Most of the scores produced with this material have a sinuous morphology with rough interior faces. The areas with superposed traces have a pitted appearance. On the other hand, the retouching of flint flakes, produces pits that are most often triangular in form. Most of the scores have a rectilinear morphology with smooth interior faces and their superposition results in the formation of hatch marks. There is also a relationship between the characteristics of the mark and the relative state of freshness of the retouchers. The validity of the criteria identified was confirmed by a blind test. These diagnostic criteria were applied to archaeological retouchers from the Mousterian site of Noisetier Cave. The results obtained improve our knowledge of the technical behaviors of Neanderthals and allow us to address questions concerning their techno-economic implications.     

Non-destructive in situ analysis of polychromy on ancient Cypriot sculptures

The study focuses on the characterization of polychromy on limestone sculptures from Cyprus, attributed to the Cypro-Archaic—end of the Hellenistic periods. Polychromy components were identified by integrating digital microscopy, imaging under ultraviolet (UV) light, visible-induced luminescence (VIL), X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) and fibre optics reflectance spectroscopy (FORS). Data acquisition was performed directly in exhibition rooms at the Cyprus Museum (Nicosia) and the Paphos District Archaeological Museum (Paphos). Among the identified materials, there are iron-containing (red, yellow, green) and copper-containing (green and blue) pigments. The precision of pigment identification by non-destructive techniques is discussed, and specific pigment names are proposed: red iron oxide, yellow iron oxide-hydroxide, green earth and Egyptian blue. Interesting results were obtained by VIL, which allowed identifying traces of Egyptian blue otherwise undetectable with the naked eye. Complementary, this study discusses advantages and problems of combined and separate use of portable XRF and FORS, raising the question of their complementarity and interchangeability for the purposes of pigment identification.     

Streets as new places to bring together both humans and plants: examples from Paris and Montpellier (France)

Greening public city space is a growing issue in France. With examples drawn from Paris and Montpellier, this article seeks to understand what happens when city-dwellers green the public space outside their door and when policies encourage spontaneous flora on the street. Plants were already part of ancient cities and have been a tool for urban planning since the nineteenth century leading to the development of public green spaces and street-tree planting. Urban ecology sparked an interest for spontaneous flora in the 1980s. Public policies concerning water, climate, and biodiversity have been trying to take this unbidden vegetation into consideration since the beginning of this century. Besides, the social sciences have shown that city-dwellers are interested in plants to embellish their balcony, and in city gardens and parks. We tried to find out if this vegetation can be more than just a tool to plan, to green, to bring biodiversity, and to beautify urban space. We argue that letting planted and unbidden flora colonize sidewalks and allowing people to act directly on it brings residents and plants to co-inhabit and co-domesticate the streets, and challenges the timelessness of a city by introducing a life cycle.     

‘My Body was Aflame with His Memory’: War,Gender and Colonial Ghosts in Hiroshima mon amour (1959)

This article argues that historicising the iconic 1959 French film Hiroshima mon amour reveals a different set of meanings that most scholars have overlooked. As France found itself embroiled in the brutal and bloody Algerian War of Independence, many started reflecting on the meaning and aftereffects of the Second World War. Despite its anti‐colonial universalist humanism, Hiroshima remains haunted by colonial ghosts and fantasies of post‐war ‘Asia’ where Asian female bodies are passive and Asian male bodies only echo other European male bodies. Ultimately, sexual and racial differences organise the film's narrative of war and canonises a Eurocentric version of ‘history’. The film's melodramatic love story renders invisible the ways gender and sexuality shape understandings of violence, wars, and violated bodies. Against Marguerite Duras's and Alain Resnais's intentions, the love story allows the remembering and forgetting of a (French) national history that only the female character embodies. Only the French woman stands in for subjectivity, memory and trauma, rendering everything else secondary. Once read as a historical text, the film illustrates the limits and ambivalences of post‐war anti‐colonial humanist political imagination.